George Lucas Revealed as Secret Director of New Han Solo Movie

Ok, that’s clearly a hyperbolic, clickbait title, and I apologize for that. Here’s what’s actually going on. It seems that there was one day during filming where George Lucas was on set. This was during Ron Howard’s time, after Miller and Lord had left the project. While it was only supposed to be a short visit, Lucas reportedly stayed for close to five hours, taking in the set and talking with people. In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Kathleen Kennedy said that there was one point where George Lucas suggested, “Why doesn’t Han just do this…” It seems that Ron Howard heard the suggestion from Lucas and thought it was a great idea. He went to his actors and said, “George wants us to do this.” 

Now, we don’t know exactly what the suggestion was or how big or small it was. Likely, this will come up again a few weeks after the movie has been released and once we’ve all seen it. Someone will probably mention in a promotional interview that, “such and such moment was George’s idea” in an attempt to get us to go back and watch the movie again. Obviously, that’s all there really is to this story, but it adds another interesting layer to the ongoing saga of George Lucas and the new Star Wars movies. 

We know that when George Lucas first sold Lucasfilm to Disney and it was announced that the Star Wars sequel trilogy would finally be made, it was done with the idea that Lucas would still play a pivotal role in the shaping of the new movies. While we’ll never know exactly what happened behind closed doors, Lucas’ plans for Episode VII were discarded, and the movie was taken in a different direction. It’s clear that this decision hurt. For the first time in the history of the Star Wars franchise, Lucas didn’t have final say on what would happen, and his ideas were shot down. Later, when asked what he thought about The Force Awakens, Lucas famously danced around the question, saying, "it’s very much the kind of movie they've been looking for" and, "the fans are going to love it" while carefully avoiding saying what he personally thought about the movie. 

Lucas got the same question for Rogue One and for The Last Jedi, and he seemed to have a warmer reaction for both of those movies. Reportedly, Lucas called director Gareth Edwards after seeing Rogue One to tell him that he loved the movie. While detractors of The Last Jedi have been quick to point out that Lucas’ statement on The Last Jedi, that it was “beautifully made,” could be about the technical aspects of the movie, and not the story, Lucas seems to have been kinder to The Last Jedi than his initial reaction to The Force Awakens. 

While we don’t know exactly what was in the George Lucas version of the new trilogy, and probably never will, we do have one small clue from the concept art for The Last Jedi. Apparently, some of the concept art for Luke’s planet of exile came from a version of Episode VII when Luke was meant to appear much earlier in the story. Some of the art was from a time before Abrams was brought on board to direct, meaning that they were likely based on something from the Lucas versions of the sequel trilogy. 

The problem is that George Lucas can’t seem to stay away from Star Wars. The idea, at least what was said in many interviews, was that Lucas was walking away from the franchise, handing the keys to Lucasfilm over to Disney, and stepping back. When his outline for the new movies was rejected, he doubled down on the idea that he really was out of the Star Wars business. To hear Mr. Lucas talk about it, he’s long gone. He doesn’t even really care about what happens to the future of Star Wars at this point. But, to watch his actions, it’s clear that he still cares about Star Wars a great deal. 

Some people have tried to paint Lucas as a greedy, money hungry movie maker, someone who was more interested in financial success than making a good movie. The sale of Lucasfilm to Disney was celebrated, with people saying that finally someone who cared about story would be in charge of Star Wars. This portrayal of Lucas existed as early as 1983, when some people called out the Ewoks as characters who didn’t really belong in Star Wars, saying they were only shoved in there to sell toys. It’s easy, when your ideas don’t line up with the ideas of the creative people in charge, to say that they’re wrong and they just don’t care about it anymore. But, with Star Wars at least, that’s not the case. Whether you’re complaining about Ewoks or trade negotiations or midichlorians or Yoda using a lightsaber or (more recently) casino planets and Leia flying through space, you don’t really have a leg to stand on if your argument is the people making the movie don’t care. 

We can have never ending discussions as to whether or not any of these things add or subtract from the franchise as a whole or how they could have been presented better. We can argue any number of ways that the movies succeeded or failed, but to say that whatever you don’t like is the result of people who don’t love Star Wars enough just doesn’t track. Right now, there have been four different people directing Star Wars movies in the new Disney-owned franchise. Each and every one of them loved Star Wars. From Ron Howard, who has been friends with George Lucas since before he ever made the first film, to Rian Johnson, who made his first movie not based on an original idea because the chance to play in the Star Wars sandbox was just too great an opportunity to pass up. Phil Lord and Chris Miller weren’t let go because they didn’t care enough about the Star Wars story. If anything, they were too focused on creating their ideal Star Wars movie to the point where things ended up not working out. JJ Abrams directed Star Trek when the idea that there would be another Star Wars movie seemed like nothing more but a distant hope and a dream. It’s easy to see that his Star Trek movie was more Star Wars inspired than from anything that had been done in the Star Trek franchise before. You can argue whether a movie, or a particular plot point, or character was a hit or a miss, but to suggest that failure is a result of a creative team too focused on the bottom line to even bother trying to make a good movie is weak. 

And that goes all the way back to the man himself, George Lucas. George Lucas still cares about Star Wars, and George Lucas has always cared about Star Wars. If Lucas was the soulless, greedy money grubber that he gets painted as, we would have had those unaltered versions of the original trilogy years ago. Can you fathom how much money Lucas has left on the table by keeping those from being released all these years? The Special Editions are the definitive editions of the movies to George Lucas. I’m not trying to say whether he’s right or wrong to think that, but it shows that he still clearly cares about his movies. If he didn’t, the holiday special would be out there, on a two disc Blu-ray special edition complete with collector's edition life robe packaging. Lucas cares about Star Wars, and he doesn’t want that holiday special to be a part of Star Wars no matter how much potential money he’s leaving on the table. 

This is the George Lucas who still shows up to fan conventions for Star Wars. This is the George Lucas who still visits the sets of the movies, gives interviews to talk about the same movies for the thousandth time, and who just can’t help himself but offer a suggestion about the new Han Solo movie. George Lucas loves Star Wars just as much as you do. I hope that I like Solo when it hits theaters, but maybe just as importantly, I hope he likes it too. 

- Joel